A t a recent MTA staff meeting, MTA Executive Director-Treasurer Ann Clarke was candid. “Many people thought we
were nuts to take on Question 2,” she said.

In early 2016, the forces arrayed in favor
of lifting the state’s cap on charter schools were
formidable.

Early polls had the “yes” side winning by a
substantial margin.

Business and hedge fund leaders backing
the campaign announced in January that they
were prepared to spend $18 million to win. They
eventually spent about $26 million, roughly twice as
much as the “no” side spent.

Governor Charlie Baker strongly supported the
ballot initiative, and at the time he had the highest
approval rating of any governor in the country.

By contrast, the “no” camp was a relatively
new coalition of unions, social justice organizations,
student activists and parent groups working under the
Save Our Public Schools umbrella.

But the SOPS campaign had a secret
weapon: more than 110,000 MTA members and
another 25,000 American Federation of Teachers
Massachusetts members who are respected teachers,
education support professionals, college faculty and
staff and retirees. And they were working alongside
groups that had deep ties to their communities.

“We knew from the start that we could neveroutspend them, but that we could — and must —beat them on the ground,” said MTA PresidentBarbara Madeloni. “We also knew that gettingmembers involved was the only way to build astronger union and a more lasting coalition withThe final vote on Question 2 was 62 percentopposed to 38 percent in favor. The lopsided victorywas national news, especially since it was a brightspot of progressivism in an election that shockedmuch of the world with the election of DonaldTrump as president.

T he “yes” vote won in only 16 of the state’s 351 cities and towns. Most of the 16 are affluent communities — including Weston,
Wellesley, Dover and Lincoln — that lose little or no
money to charter schools.

“The ‘yes’ campaign greatly underestimatedhow much people care about their local publicschools,” Madeloni said. “The voters made it clearthat they don’t want to divert more money from truepublic schools to unaccountable privately run charterschools that do not serve all students.”The MTA’s first task was to inform membersabout the issue. The three key points were thatcharter schools already drain more than $450 milliona year from public schools, are not accountable to thelocal communities that pay for them, and fail to serveas many special needs students and English languagelearners as the district public schools.

Stoughton Teachers Association President John
Gunning said that the messages worked. “Sometimes
I would talk to people who would tell me they don’t
have kids in the schools, and I would say, ‘Yes, but
you are a taxpayer, so you have skin in the game.
Your tax dollars are being spent on schools that are
not required to meet the same standards as the public
schools and your public officials do not have any
oversight over them,’” he said.

Gunning’s local was involved early, meeting
before school was out in 2016 to plan for the
campaign.

“We knew this was going to be a big fight,” hesaid. “We tried to mobilize as many people as wecould with the intention of getting active as soon asLabor Day hit.”He estimated that 35 to 40 of his local’s 350members participated in an organized activity suchas phone banking or canvassing, while many othersinformally spread the word to friends and relatives.

A helpful step was getting the School Committee
to pass a resolution against Question 2 about three
weeks before the election.

“That was important,” Gunning said. “As anassociation we haven’t always agreed with thesuperintendent and School Committee. When peoplein town heard that we were all in agreement on this,that made a big difference.”In the end, 215 school committees voted tooppose Question 2, and not one voted in favor.

T he SOPS campaign recognized early on the power of having individual educators reach out to voters.

“When I talked to voters on the phone, I often
heard people say, ‘I plan to vote against that ballot
question because my niece or nephew or daughter
or neighbor who is an educator told me it will hurt
our local schools,’” said MTA Vice President Erik J.

Champy. “It is hard to quantify the impact of thoseconversations, but we know they were very, veryimportant.”One challenge was to increase the volume ofthose conversations by having members join phonebanks or canvasses.

Above, MTA President Barbara
Madeloni spoke to activists
who gathered in Boston on
Election Night to celebrate the
landslide win by the No on
Question 2 campaign. Among
those on stage with her were
Steven Tolman, left, president
of the Massachusetts AFL-CIO,
and MTA Vice President Erik J.

Champy. In the photo at left,
Alexizendria Link, a teacher at
North High School in Worcester
and a former charter school
teacher, addressed the crowd.